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The new "New Orleans"
2009-12-10 14:18
What Jazz à Juan
Where Juan-les Pins, Antibes
When each July
Web: Click here for photos of previous festivals
It was a love affair that began in Berlin in 1927, and which ultimately gave birth to the celebrated jazz festival in Juan-les-Pins, where the best musicians of the genre still gather each July.
In that year the black American musician Sidney Bechet first met German-born Elizabeth Ziegler, and the two instantly fell in love. But all too soon the two lovers were separated - first on account of music and later by politics. After taking power in 1933, Hitler had pronounced jazz an anathema: 'No negro music for Aryan ears'. In the aftermath of the war, continuing racial disharmony in the USA caused Bechet to come to Paris, where his sax and clarinet playing proved hugely popular, especially in the left-bank club the Vieux Colombier.
Bechet found himself in demand from Belgium and Switzerland to Casablanca, and it was there, in the financial capital of Morocco, that Elizabeth happened to be living; the two were reunited after 23 years of separation, and decided to marry.
Then came the opportunity which changed the face of jazz forever on the Riviera: the owner of the Vieux Colombier opened a second night-club in Juan les Pins which attracted hundreds of holidaymakers.
Bechet adored Juan les Pins, which he said reminded him of New Orleans. It was entirely natural that the two should marry and on 17 August 1951 the mayor of Antibes united the two amid a media frenzy. Photographers came from far and wide to immortalize an event which surpassed the wildest dreams: Dixieland bands marched down the streets day and night, and crowds dressed in shorts and bikinis provided a real festival atmosphere.
King for the day, Bechet took to his instrument to seal a second marriage - between Juan and Jazz - a coupling that led to his celebrated tune 'Dans les rues d'Antibes'. For the nightclub owner even greater success was assured as every summer Bechet returned to make Juan the European capital of New Orleans jazz.
Bechet died in 1959 and a year later the festival was instigated. Charlie Mingus, Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie - creator of be-bop - as well as Rosetta Tharpe played at the inaugural event. And the rest, as they say, is history.